A new release of Venona documents with NSA notes identifying U.S. officials
and others as the Soviet agents mentioned by code name in the Soviet cables
names Theodore Alvin Hall as the Atomic spy known previously only as Mlad
("Youngster").

The recently released Venona documents identify
"Cedric Belfrage, the British writer who worked for wartime British
intelligence, as a Soviet agent in the early 1940s." While Belfrage
worked for British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York from 1941 to
1943, he was also "agent UCN/9, a source for a KGB officer named Vasilij
Zubilin.... Apparently he was not the only Soviet spy on the staff there.
The identification of another agent known as 'Havre' is blacked out in
the declassified documents."

The author looks at one of the documents in the Venona collection [Document No. 10 in Benson and Warner, eds., Venona: Soviet
Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957 (1996)]. The item in question is an anonymous letter, dated 7 August 1943, to "Mr. Guver" (Hoover). It identifies Soviet "intelligence officers and operations that stretched from Canada to Mexico." It also includes accusations of war crimes against the KGB rezident in Washington, Vassili M. Zarubin (a.k.a. Zubilin), and his deputy, Markov (in the United States under the alias of Lt. Col. Vassili D. Mironov). The author sees the letter, a mix of fact and fantasy, as probably the result of a personal vendetta either by Markov or another enemy of Zarubin's within the rezidentura.

This is an excellent overview of the Venona project, in terms of the
nature of the activity and what was obtained from it and what was not.
The author includes a brief but lucid section on the relation of the materials
to the Rosenberg espionage case. For individuals coming to a discussion
of the Venona decrypts without some background in the project, this is
a good place to start.

Isserman, NYT, 9 May 1999, points out that in their initial
collaborative effort, The American Communist Movement:
Storming Heaven Itself (1992), the
authors concluded that: "'Few American Communists
were spies,' ... and 'espionage was not a regular activity of the American
C.P.' Haynes and Klehr have since changed their minds.... There is still
room for honest debate about many aspects of the history of American Communism.
But about the involvement of ... American Communists as accomplices of
Soviet espionage during World War II, there are no longer grounds for serious
disagreement....

"This book clearly establishes the main contours
of the previously hidden landscape of Soviet espionage in the United States
in the 30's and 40's. One can disagree about details; the authors speak
far too authoritatively about the presumed guilt of several alleged spies....
In general, however, they are cautious in their judgments of guilt and
innocence.... Weinstein and Vassiliev did a better job in exploring the motives of Stalin's American spies in The Haunted Wood."

Powers, NYRB (11 May 2000) and Intelligence Wars (2004), notes that this work portrays "[t]he immense intellectual task of reading the Soviet traffic." He describes Venona as "a rich, convincing, and vivid report." Unsinger,
NIPQ 16.3, comments that "[t]he story here is ... a straight
forward look at what we learned [from Venona] about the extent of espionage
and those who played the game.... [The authors] have done a good job in
a readable and interesting manner."

For Peake, NWCR 53.3 and Intelligencer 11.2, "Haynes and
Klehr have done a masterful job of analysis and have presented it in a
very readable fashion." The reviewer notes that while the Venona decrypts
may not have convinced everyone of the magnitude of Soviet penetration
in the United States, "[f]or most, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage
in America is the final word."

Herken, I&NS 16.3, calls this "[f]ar and away the best historical and analytical work on Venona thus far... [T]he authors have written a highly readable and even fascinating history of Soviet espionage in America.... An invaluable resource for spy buffs are the five appendices, which give details on known and suspected Soviet agents by name and codename." To Friend, IJI&C 13.3, the authors
have provided "a well-informed and quietly moderate book, devoid of
sensationalism on a sensational subject."

Hyde uses the Venona materials "to show ... the extent and technique
of KGB operations [in the United States], and the use of the Communist
Party" of the USA (CPUSA). He focuses on "Joseph Katz, who served
the KGB for more than ten years as a supurb multifunctional agent and who
managed..., Bernard L. Schuster, the organizational secretary of the Communist
Party in New York."

Lamphere, Robert J., and Tom Shachtman. The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent's Story. New York: Random House, 1986. New York: Berkley, 1986. [pb] New Ed., with Post-Cold War Afterword. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995. [pb]

Petersen calls The FBI-KGB War "a particularly revealing first-hand account of counterintelligence operations in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s." Miller, IJI&C 1.3, agrees, finding it a "masterful presentation of the reality of counterespionage activities," and "strongly recommends" it.

To Powers, NYRB (13 May 1993) and Intelligence Wars (2004), 295-320, the book is the "best account of th[e] still fragmentary story [of the Venona material].... Lamphere's book adds much important information to the stories of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,... Klaus Fuchs,... and of the Soviet spy ring which included Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and Kim Philby."

Cram says Lamphere tells the "story about breaking the KGB ciphers during World War II and the resulting consequences of that achievement in the struggle against Soviet espionage and subversion." This "otherwise excellent history" is marred by the "egregious error" of accepting Pincher's tagging of Hollis as a Soviet agent. The author discusses Hoover's "vengeful actions" against the early CIA and liaison with it. "Although this book has a few errors and the story has perhaps been gilded a bit by Lamphere, it nevertheless remains one of the best histories of US counterintelligence."

According to Surveillant 4.4/5, the 1995 edition includes a 27-page Afterword where Lamphere "reviews the KGB-FBI wars using the latest releases from KGB and U.S. archives." Commenting in an article published in 2003, Robarge, Studies 47.3/fn.4, says that this "remains the best book on the FBI and counterintelligence." For a report on some of the difficulties Lamphere experienced in publishing his book, see George Lardner, Jr., "Ex-Agent's Spy Book Tests Secrecy," Washington Post, 27 Oct. 1977, A1.